Searchers for Babe Ruth’s piano rolled out the heavy artillery on Friday, November 15, 2002 at Willis Pond in Sudbury, bringing in John Fish, the Cape Cod resident who pinpointed the location of the black boxes from the September 11th planes with the aid of a magnetometer.

With the aid of a boat provided by the Department of Environmental Law Enforcement, Fish completed an underwater survey of the lake and pinpointed “six to eight” magnetic anomaly, four of which he termed “major.”

“All of the targets have high amounts of ferrous metal,” he said. “one of them was big enough to stop the boat. They’re not huge objects, but they could be what you’re looking for. The smaller ones are worth investigating as well.”

Fish’s magnetometer was connected to a laptop computer that will allow him to produce a detailed map of the lake and pinpoint the location of each target within five feet with the help of a Global Positioning System.

Once the map is complete, underwater archaeologist Chris Hugo will lead a team of volunteer divers which will locate each target. Hopefully, one of them will be the Babe’s lost piano.

Even if the piano were located definitively, it would not come up on Friday, coordinator Eloise Newell pointed out.

“We have a reconnaissance permit now which allows us to look for the piano in a state pond. We have to do four things before we will be eligible for an excavation permit: raise the $200,000 required for recovery and conservation, hire the lab to do the conservation, hire the company to excavate the piano from the pond, and build the water-tight box for transporting the piano from the pond to lab.”